Lottery style games may be defined as any game of chance where the player pays for the opportunity to win a prize, and whether or not the player wins the prize is determined solely by chance, with no skill involved on the part of the player. Such games are of course very popular and widely practiced or played. Instant scratch-off lottery tickets, wherein each ticket contains various symbols, each of which is covered by a secure “scratch-off” coating that prevents the player from being able to view the symbol before the coating is scratched off or removed, have been known and in use for several decades, and have steadily increased in popularity. Such instant lotteries appeal to those players who want to know immediately if they have won. Although the average payouts or winnings in such games is smaller than weekly or bi-weekly games such as lotto wherein players are competing for a single large prize in a drawing, in general the odds of winning at least a small prize are substantially higher. Once the coating is scratched off, it is revealed on the spot whether the ticket is a winning or losing ticket.
In order to be profitable to state lottery commissions, such instant lottery games must have a sufficient appeal to entice customers to purchase and play the game in numbers great enough to generate significant revenues. Therefore, new games are continually being introduced in the hope that they will be popular, while older or less popular games are retired or revamped. While such games therefore will have new themes or marketing strategies, on the average, the method of play of most scratch-off games is generally similar. In addition, most are sold for between $5 and $20, the odds of winning a free ticket are fairly good, such as a 1/30 chance, while the odds of winning higher amounts gradually decrease, with the odds of a winning a top prize such as $250,000 being, for example, 1/480,000 or the like. In addition to the standard instant game, in which each ticket is predetermined to be either a winner or loser, some scratch-off games are probability games, wherein every ticket is potentially a winner, but the player must scratch and reveal certain symbol patterns or combinations of symbols to win. While such games are initially interesting, the majority of players seem to lose interest in the games fairly quickly. In addition, players know that even with tickets that provide multiple chances to win, the majority of the time they are not going to win anything, which discourages the casual player. As far as the present inventor is aware, no instant lottery game is in existence wherein every ticket purchased is guaranteed to be a winning ticket, so that players receive a payout from every single ticket. In addition, the present inventor has conceived of such a game having a unique method of play wherein if a player is not a winner in an initial scratch-off game, such player then will be a guaranteed winner in a second “bonus” game on the same lottery ticket. It is believed such method provides a more interesting game that keeps the players attention better than standard instant lottery games, and as a result will generate more income than the standard game.